Brazil's highest court has just come down with a very heavy ruling, finally deciding the fate of two of the first defendants who were implicated in the Jan. 8 Brasilia riot:
Seventeen years in prison.
Some of the charges that the citizens were charged with were "attempted coup d’etat" and "attempted abolition of the democratic rule of law."
Age 51 Aécio Lúcio Costa Pereira was identified as one of thousands in a crowd of supporters of conservative former President Jair Bolsonaro who stormed the Brazilian Congress, STF headquarters, and Brazil's office of the presidency in January.
The identity of the man was determined because of his own doing. Pereira himself posted several videos on social media in which he documented the chaos in the capitol.
"For those who didn’t believe it, we’re here," he said while wearing a "military intervention now" shirt. "It will work. Don't give up, get on the streets."
Pereira went through Brazil's court system with two other defendants:
43-year-old Já Thiago de Assis Mathar and 24-year-old Matheus Lima de Carvalho Lázaro.
de Carvalho suffered the same fate as Pereira, being sentenced to 17 years behind bars.
Mathar received a slightly lower sentence of 14 years in prison. The reduced sentence was apparently because Mathar did not post videos to social media or encourage other citizens to join in on the action.
What do you think about this story?
Should citizens of a country be able to take matters into their own hands when they are feeling oppressed by the government, no matter the cost?
Or do citizens have an obligation to obey governments they don't agree with in the name of public welfare?
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